


you must be a christmas tree, you light up the room

by hotmesslewis



Series: Lewis and Clark - Modern [5]
Category: Historical RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Ring Them Bells, Those Christmasy Feelings, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 18:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: William Clark buys some new sweaters for the holiday season.





	you must be a christmas tree, you light up the room

William Clark blew into the kitchen with a cold wind and a warm grin on his face. He barely set the wrapped gift box on the kitchen counter before he swept Meriwether Lewis into a deep kiss, pushing the leaner man’s back into the lip of the counter. He was still smiling when he pulled away.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Billy.” Meri’s eyes were dark and a bright flush was spreading up his neck.

“Hi. I have a surprise for you, handsome.”

Meri tried to hide his smile as his eyes darted beyond Billy. “Not in front of my mother, you don’t.”

“Ah, yes.”

Billy and Meri had decided to take a break from the bustle of New York City at the holidays this Christmas. Mostly on the threat of Lucy Meriwether Lewis-Marks, who insisted that either they come down to stay with her in Virginia for Christmas, or she was coming up to stay with them. On careful consideration of their small, thin-walled, one-bedroom apartment, full of Meri’s flourishing and seemingly limitless collection of plants, Billy’s computers and antique maps, and one oversized furry black Newfoundland dog, they concluded that a holiday in the cool, clear country air of Charlottesville was just the thing they needed. So they borrowed a friend’s truck, packed some things, managed to wrangle Seaman into the back seat, and took a couple of days to drive down to Virginia.

Meri was more excited than he cared to admit to be back home, in Virginia—excited to see his mentor and father figure, Dr. Thomas Jefferson, and his wife Sally Hemings Jefferson again, and to attend Tom’s infamous and ever-popular “nondenominational winter holiday” party happening that evening.

Billy all but danced across the kitchen to give Lucy a kiss on the top of the head and a big bear hug, lifting the small woman off the floor a couple of inches as she laughed. “Sorry, Momma Lewis, I didn’t mean to ignore you. And don’t pay any attention to your son; it’s not that kind of surprise.” Back on the floor now, the diminutive woman gave Billy a playful smack on the arm.

But it was the first opportunity that Meri had the chance to look at Billy properly, and he had noticed the sweater.

“Um, Billy. What the hell are you wearing?”

“Meriwether Lewis! Language!” (This from Lucy.)

“Do you like it? I saw it and I just couldn’t resist, I _had_ to get it.” Billy held his arms out in the air and turned slowly, so that Meri could admire his sweater fully.

Meri admired in stunned silence, a concerned crease in his brow.

It was _hideous_.

The catastrophe of a sweater flirted with Fair Isle patterns, but failed entirely to achieve the desired cozy and kitschy effect. The colors fell dramatically short of coordinating or even agreeing with each other, which surprised Meri Lewis to an extent, because he had always believed that navy, red, and white always went together in an easy if uninspired way. The distorted snowflakes and reindeer parading across the front of the sweater struck him as oddly militant and profoundly disturbing.

Lucy turned back to her work, wrapping the special smoked ham she had prepared for TJ’s celebration, in silence and obvious embarrassment.

“Billy, it’s very—”

“Wait, don’t say _anything_.” So proud of his purchase, Billy interrupted with a broad, smug smile and grabbed his gift box again, handing it to Meriwether. “For you.”

Meri took of the top of the box with a growing sense of despair and examined the article within. Yep. A sweater, almost identical to Billy’s—forest green in the place of the rich red, elk instead of reindeer.

“I know how much you love your clothes, and I knew you’d just love my sweater, so I had to get you one, too.”

Lucy couldn’t suppress an audible snicker. Meri glanced over his shoulder at his mother with desperation in his eyes. “That was very thoughtful of you, babe, but—”

“I thought we could both wear them to Dr. Jefferson’s Christmas party tonight.”

Lucy dropped the scissors she was using to cut the ribbon.

“Non-denominational winter holiday party. Tom doesn’t want to offend anyone by calling it a Christmas party,” Meri correctly absently, his mind reeling as he tried frantically to figure out how to get out of wearing the sweater.

“The man has a Christmas tree.”

“He also has a menorah.”

“He’s not Jewish. He sings Christmas songs. Constantly. And slightly off-key.”

A slight inspiration; his eyes focused again on Billy. “It’s a very . . . festive idea, babe, but I just don’t know . . .   I mean, we’ll match. I don’t think that would look too good.”

Billy’s hazel eyes were still bright and so pleased with himself. “No, we won’t match—the colors are different, and yours has elk, not reindeer!”

Meri opened his mouth to respond with another protest before realizing he didn’t have one that wouldn’t hurt Billy’s feelings. He frowned down at the sweater in the box hopelessly.

“You hate it, don’t you?”

Meri looked back up into the redheaded man’s big hazel eyes and was dismayed to see them sad. “No!”

“No, it’s fine. Damn it all,” (“Language, Billy Clark, please!” from Momma Lewis) “I just wanted to get you something nice, honey, and there I go, screwing it up again.”

“No, Billy, really, I don’t—”

“No, it’s fine, Meriwether. I can take it back, hopefully, after Christmas sometime.”

“No.” Meri spoke firmly. “Billy, no. I love it. It’s . . . it’s very well-made.”

Billy smiled at him with a sweet shyness. “Then you’ll wear it tonight?”

“Of course. I’d love to.”

“Speaking of,” the gentle voice of Lucy broke the momentary tender silence between the two men, “we’d better all go get ready about now so we won’t be late.”

“Right.” Meri took the box with the awful sweater to his childhood bedroom, shut and locked the door, and tried not to groan too loudly. He sat on his old bed and briefly considered the few options he had of ruining the sweater and thus getting out of wearing it ( _Cigarette burn? He didn’t smoke. Spilling something on it? But what? All he really wanted to do was take a nice, sharp pair of scissors to it . . ._ ) but gave up on the ideas, admitting to himself that doing anything to the sweater, even claiming it was accidental, would hurt Billy’s feelings. And that’s the last thing he wanted to do.

Sighing he stripped off his button-down and jeans, slipping into his tight dark-wash dress jeans and a fresh cream-colored shirt. His socks, then, replacing the tan for a nice argyle, and his good brown boots, saving the sweater for the last possible moment, avoiding even looking at it. But the time came, inevitable as the sun setting, and he had to put on the sweater.

He took it out of the gift box and let the folds fall out, looking at the sweater for the first time in all of its horrible glory. Perhaps the worst thing about it was the fact that his earlier praise of it was truthful—it _was_ a well-made sweater.

It just happened to be ugly as sin.

He took a deep breath, like he was about to dive into a river, before pulling the sweater over his head. He adjusted it—the collar, the cuffs—before looking in the mirror.

He let out his breath noisily.

It was worse than he thought.

How was that even possible?

Meri frowned at his reflection, ignored the sweater, and tried to push his impossible cowlick down before giving up and leaving the room.

Billy was leaning in the guestroom doorway across the hall, where he and Meri had been sleeping the week they had been there, wearing khaki corduroy and charcoal gray.

He was not wearing his horrid Christmas sweater.

He smiled, openly, teasingly.

“You’re wearing the sweater.”

“You’re not wearing yours.”

“Yeah, I just kind of wanted to see if— Oh, for God’s sake, take it off, Meri, I can’t take you seriously in that thing.”

Meri was smiling now. “No, you know what? I don’t think that I will.” He crossed the hall and leaned on the doorframe across from Billy. “Now, why did you buy these sweaters?”

“I wanted to see, if I bought them and wanted you to wear one, if you would wear it for me.”

Meri stopped leaning against the doorframe and leaned on Billy instead, chest to chest, hips to hips. “So . . . was it a test or a joke?”

“Hmm. Both, I guess.”

“You’re a horrible person.” Meri gave Billy a quick peck on the lips. “And you’re going to hell.”

“Probably.” Billy’s hand was tangled in the hair on the back of Meri’s head, pulling him closer and kissing him deeper, his tongue slipping past his lover’s teeth and deep into his lover’s mouth.

Lucy walked past them and cleared her throat loudly.

“Sorry!” Billy called after her. “Now will you please take off that awful sweater?”

Meri gave him a clever look. “Help me.”

“Did you really think my taste was that bad?”

“Well . . .”

“Oh, come on, I’m not _that_ bad at shopping.”

“There was the orange and red striped sweater.”

“It was comfortable!”

“And you’re a redhead. Doesn’t mix well. And then, those plaid . . . things.”

“Shorts.”

“Those weren’t shorts.”

“We need to leave, boys!”

Meri slipped into his favorite wine-colored velvet blazer. They left the sweater on the floor.

-

Sally Hemings Jefferson answered the door in a golden sweater dress that richened her skin tone and brought out her honeyed eyes—a very good decision, Meri thought.

“Billy! Meri! Mrs. Lewis-Marks, please, do come in. The bar is that way, boys, and yes, we have whiskey—I’m not even going near it tonight. I need to avoid the temptation.”

Billy smiled his thanks, but Meri’s eyes were on the telltale curve of her stomach through the form-fitting dress. “Again already, Sally?”

“Ah, yes.”

“It’s been, what, a couple of years since the last one?”

They both looked to the back of the room, where Tom’s older daughters and Tom and Sally’s seven year old played with their youngest child, trying to make him laugh.

“Well.”

“How do you still manage to have a career?”

“Oh, trust me—Tom does his share.”

Meri grinned to himself. Only Sally Hemings could make the great, the intellectual powerhouse Thomas Jefferson into a domestic.

“Speaking of Tom,” Sally motioned the boys closer and spoke under her breathe, “don’t say anything about his sweater. Just don’t.”

Billy glanced sidelong at Meri, who was trying not to smile.

“Seriously. It took me half an hour to get him calmed down enough to come down here and be social after I mentioned that I didn’t really think it worked great for him.”

Billy was craning his neck, looking for a sign of the tall red head over the heads of the other partiers.

“He’s so proud of it; he bought it himself.”

Billy and Tom simultaneously saw each other through the crowd—Tom approached the three of them, all smiles, his voice booming across the room. “Meri! Billy! It’s been too long!”

It was navy with red and white.

It had reindeer and snowflakes.

Billy looked Tom in the eye and managed to keep a straight face, even as Meri collapsed in a fit of coughing that barely disguised his laughter.

“I like your sweater, sir.”


End file.
